


Small Comforts

by F-117 Nighthawk (F117_Nighthawk)



Series: Memories Always Included [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Agent Carolina & Agent Washington are Siblings, Gen, Hospitals, Protective Siblings, mentions of canon-typical violence, post-Spiral, tbh the yorkalina and mainewash could be platonic or romantic take your pick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 14:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14045904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F117_Nighthawk/pseuds/F-117%20Nighthawk
Summary: Post-Spiral. Maine is injured and in the infirmary, and Carolina is seeking to comfort and be comforted.





	Small Comforts

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched season nine again and I am a Sucker for CarWash Sibs and uhhhh this happened?

Carolina shoved her armor in her locker and took a deep breath. Slowly, head leaning against the locker, she let it out. Images flashed through her head of the mission. Of the freeway. Of the insurrectionist taking  _ her _ pistol and pulling the trigger on Maine. Of Maine getting thrown over the side of the freeway. Of Maine strapped into a seat on the pelican, York and North desperately patching up what they could.

She’d been hoping a training session would clear at least some of it. FILSS had kicked her out of the training room after an hour, claiming she was reaching the maximum recommended number of hours awake. The image of Wash’s face when Florida dropped them all on the  _ Invention,  _ when he saw the blood, so, so, so much blood, was burned into her retinas. 

It was  _ stupid. She  _ was  _ stupid.  _ She should have watched her back more, saw the sniper, hit the insurrectionist harder, stepped forward just a little more so the blade of the knifle sliced clean through instead of a harsh cut. She was the  _ leader. _ She was the  _ number one.  _ How could she have missed so many important things out in the field?  _ Utah  _ could have done better than her and he was long dead. Texas had gotten the case. Texas hadn’t gotten any of her team killed, hell, Texas had probably saved them all. She had failed. Simple as that. She had failed her father.

The crunch of hand on metal reverberated through the locker room. The  _ Director  _ wasn’t important right now. She had failed her team. She had failed Wash.

She had failed  _ Maine.  _

A few minutes later Carolina opened the door to the infirmary. Wyoming, CT, North, and York had been released earlier that morning, leaving Maine the only one left. She wasn’t surprised to find Wash sitting next to him on a nearby bed. She paused for a moment, considering whether to come back later and give Wash his time or stay and support them both. 

Her dilemma was solved when Wash looked up and spotted her. “Hi.”

“Hey,” she said, walking towards them. She stopped on the same side of Maine as Wash. “How’s he doing?”

Wash gave a deep sigh. “He’s gonna be out for a while. His throat got really.....the medic said it was basically....torn apart. They reconstructed as much as they could but, he might not ever be able to talk again. There was also damage to his jaw, but they said they managed to fix that, and his chest. Collapsed lung, internal bleeding, fractured ribs and collar bone, torn muscles, and a dislocated shoulder. He’ll. Survive. And probably fight another day.”

There was a distinctive hitch to Wash’s breath that Carolina was fairly certain the only two people that could ever pick up on it were currently in the room. He was trying not to cry. She sat down next to him on the bed and hesitantly wrapped an arm around him.

“Carolina?”

“I....I’m. I’m sorry.”

He turned slightly to look at her and she finally got a good look at his watering eyes. He blinked and tears threatened to fall onto his cheeks or the sweatshirt he was wearing. The sweatshirt swallowed him whole and had a print on the front of the UNSC logo. It was clearly Maine’s. “What?”

“For not paying as much attention as I should have.”

Wash blinked at her for a moment. “Carolina, you can’t watch everything at once.”

She sighed, “I know. But, I’m here now, to watch. And provide a shoulder to cry on.”

“I don’t need a shoulder to cry on.”

“Wash,  _ David, _ I can tell you’re not okay. And I’m...not okay either. That’s why I’m here. So if you don’t need a shoulder to cry on then fine, but I’m staying here with both of you.”

“I just...I just...I know we’re in the military. But I can’t lose anyone else.” Tears started down his cheeks and he smushed his face into her shoulder, muffling his hitched words. “I just want to protect everyone, all my  _ family _ and I  _ can’t.  _ I was in Maryland’s pelican with the package, just landing on the  _ Invention  _ when I heard York yelling over the comms for a medvac. I was so far away and I couldn’t  _ do anything _ to help. I just want everyone to be okay.”

Carolina rubbed soothing circles on Wash’s shoulders and let him cry. She would never acknowledge it, but a few tears ran their trails down her face. After a while he finally quieted and mumbled a “Thanks, ‘Lina.” She rested her chin on his head gently, an old habit from a long, long, time ago when they hadn’t been the same height. Somehow she failed to notice the exact time when he fell asleep on her shoulder, but considering she had no plans to be moving any time soon it was just as well.

She heard the door open and froze a little. She’d made it a point to not tell the other Freelancers that she was related to Wash and there wasn’t exactly a good explanation for why Wash was asleep on her shoulder right now. 

“Hey, ‘Lina.”

Ah, it was just York. She had told him about her and Wash after the one time the three of them had been sent on a mission together and she had screamed “David” instead of “Wash” when her baby brother had gotten shot in the stomach. “Hey.”

York walked up to Maine’s side and looked at the monitors. “He okay?”

“He....will be. Mostly.”

York looked over at her. “And him?”

She glanced down at Wash. “Yeah. It’s been a long day.”

He moved away from the monitors to stand next to her. “What about you?”

“Me?”

York sat down on her other side and grabbed her hand. “Yeah, you. Maine’s your friend too, not to mention you got hurt yourself and I saw you in the training room earlier.”

She looked down at their entwined hands. “Yeah. Or, yeah. Yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound very confident.”

“I’m frustrated. And worried, and angry. But I’m already doing all I can to deal with that right now. Physically I’m fine, just got a little knocked around.”

She could tell York didn’t believe her, but he seemed content to let it go for now. He leaned against her a little, a comforting presence in the still room. Everything was going to be okay. Everyone was going to be okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> ~~None of them noticed Tex standing in the observation window looking at the two people who were something between her siblings and children.~~
> 
>  
> 
> That final sentence is probably the last time Carolina thinks that ;;;
> 
> Personally I think Wash was fine with being called David until the MoI crashed and everything went to hell. He might also be fine with it later, but he prefers Wash bc he's a very different person than he was before hand.


End file.
